Liberty Coins was a typical small time coin dealer operations located not far from the F train on Kings Highway, in Brooklyn, NY. The surrounding community is largely Jewish with transient communities of Latin Americans and Eastern Europeans surround the 2nd floor store front that could only be accessed by appointment. It was run by a reputable dealer with decades of experience, in Steve Halfon, who, as many other coin dealers, dealt in a lot of cash, and tried to keep client transactions anonymous, while dealing with many gold and silver coins. Much of his client base consisted of communities that have experienced tragic repression by government, and is inherently secretive and private, in both the Orthodox Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Sephardic Jews from repressive middle eastern regimes, and Russian Jewish Emigres of the former Soviet Union. In addition, the area has deep links to New York's diamond and jewelry traded. Steve was a beloved family man, married to Terri Ballenberg Halfon, whose heart was all but broken by the murder. He also had a daughter, and was known as a strong family man by his entire extended family. He had tied to Rabbi Mordechai German of the Beer Hagadol Yeshiva, a Yeshiva founded in 1979 by some of the most prominent rabbis of the generation. to meet the educational, social, and spiritual needs of the flood of Jewish children from the former Soviet Union. In regard all these wonderful connections, he was blessed more than most. On August 23rd, 2011, more than 10 years ago, he was kidnapped outside his coin shop after work by an organized mob and beaten to death. He was stuffed into a blue/black Volvo which was later abandoned. He died because he was a coin dealer, and he was targeted. At 5:10PM on that Tuesday evening, Halfon was dragged out of his car by the mob, and threw him in a black Volvo where they beat him to death and then dropped his body less than mile away on East 7th Street and Avenue N. The New York Daily News reported: A driver then noticed the beaten body and rushed him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Witnesses reported that on a block away on Avenue O, the three men dumped a blue/black Volvo, ditched their bloody clothes and fled. In the end, it has been reported that, three suspects, including a Mr Andrew Jackson of Staten Island, were arrested for the murder. I am not certain if there was a trail or what the outcomes were, and I will investigate this further. When this happened, it was reported about the news, and discussed, here, on cointalk, with much banter back and forth blaming the victim, and speculating if he was armed it would have had a better chance. That is not entirely surprising. Every coin related crime is excused away by some portion of the community. The proposition that this problem can be brought under control with more and bigger guns and bigger dogs is laughable, if not just sad. What really fuels this kind of crime is the ease in which stolen property can be fenced and resold throughout the numismatics community, and the deep reluctance that police departments country wide, but especially in urban centers, have in pursuing these crimes aggressively. Not enough people take this seriously and that is why these things happen. Steve Halfon and his wife deserve better. Steve’s family survived and escaped the brutality of Soviet Union antisemitism and repression, only for Steve to be brutally beaten to death not more than a few blocks from his home for the crime of being a coin dealer. And that is the uncomfortable truth.
